Page 52 of Our Hearts Knew Better

“Good.” He nodded, slipping his hands into his shorts pockets. “You’re not getting a lecture from me,” he said. “You’ve gotten enough of those when you didn’t deserve them. You might deserve one now, but in the end, it’ll just fuel a fire in you to do it more.” I chewed at my smile. “So I’ll tell you what I told my son the first time he did this. Be careful. And I’m here to listen. If you ever need to talk about anything, I’m here and Isolde’s here. Okay? And if you’re gonna do this again—don’t—but if you do…do it on Richard’s boat.”

A laugh popped out of me as I blinked my wet lashes. “Which one’s his?”

“Seaduction,” Levi answered as he rejoined us.

“Like, s-e-a-duction?” I asked to clarify the emphasis.

He lifted his brows inyesand his dad said, “And he has none of it.”

Levi and I laughed. I mouthedthank youto his dad and he smiled another nod.

They had plans to sail later today and invited me along. I rushed home with the wine bottle clutched to my chest and real dreams on my heart.

Levi told me to ask him somethingtomorrow. It was tomorrow. And I was making things happen. I wasn’t sure exactlywhen, but today was the day.

My first stop was the vacant kitchen. The thud of the bottle in the trash was the final drop of my stomach, the last sinking in my chest.

But it wasn’t. How my dad had twisted me would always leave me bent. And that’s what he’d given me, dents in my heart to pump love around.

A roommate, until I was gone.

He’d tolerate me as I’d tolerate him. But we wouldn’t know each other.

I ate something to settle my stomach, then I used the bathroom and cleaned myself up, coaching myself in another one of myhottestoutfits—my sleeveless white romper with buttons, the shorts part a pastel pink with a bow at the waist—at my closet mirror, complete with my ChapStick to keep my lips softer. I talked to myself as if I were Clara.

She told me I could do this.

She said Levi told me to ask him again because he wants to kiss me too.

She told me he wanted to be my boyfriend and cheered me on for planning to tell him I wanted the same.

I repeated after her, then I rushed back out the door.

You missed every shot you didn’t take, and itwouldn’tbe in my blood to do that.

****

The lullaby of the sea was a steady vibration with my nerves as they got the best of me most of the trip.

And it seemed they were contagious.

Levi was the slightest bit shaky, in his voice and his breaths. We were both quieter, stumbling over steps and words, while we focused ourselves to the views outside the boat, saving our voices for what was coming, what had come, everything that was happening, everything we had to say.

When we made it back to the dock, Elliot got called off by a man who seemed to be waiting for us—for him, who turned out to beSeaduction Richard, who, though he had none of it, Elliot climbed off to meet like he could sense some kind of tension he had to escape on his Gilligan.

He’s leaving us alone.

I owed him another thank you.

And we were, finally, alone.

And therewastension. It was coiled through Levi’s arms as he worked around the boat, thick in the air, as I helped him.

Our different duties forced some space between us, because I really did want to help, but. . .

“Levi.” His name from my mouth was the snap we needed, an unwinding wind for the release of my next words and his gust of laughter after I said them. “I have a question.”

He tilted his lingering smile at me. “I might have an answer.”

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